Eivaley squirmed and groaned as she attempted to crush Conor's hand. Thankfully, because his was metal, this did not hurt in the slightest; if anything, it was causing her more pain.
If he was a mere man, his little ruby certainly would have dislocated his thumb at a bare minimum, but he lived up to the expectations she set for him, that he could handle anything.
“It’s too much,” Eivaley struggled to say, her breath hitching tightly as a constant dull throbbing rolled through her neck.
“You are fine,” Conor assured, looking over as one of the priestesses pushed an ancient fang against Eivaleys neck.
Conor considered the tool strange because of what it was made of and the implications of those materials existing. It was more storied than all of the Kurlatra empire and was the tooth of an Inyme-drake.
It was as thick as a soda can and thrice as long. Its dull grey surface was coated in millions of intricate runes, which painstakingly detailed the story of the first empress.
Until this point, Conor believed all forms of what the Kurlatra called drakes to be fictitious, little more than legends of old that still existed within popular culture. Conor had seen plenty of drakes depicted on the mosaics around the city, enough that he had jokingly wondered if the creatures and the mosaics grew from the ground.
The specific one Conor had heard of in the past was the Gurilian Drake. It was a creature Ecallar Herela had just conjured up to make himself seem more capable and noteworthy---at least, Conor thought that was the case. Now, he was not as sure.
If Ecallar had killed anything that had teeth that large, perhaps the stuck-up bastard was actually far more capable than Conor had imagined. Even Conor doubted he could take on a creature the size of a bus and might as well be a walking tank in a straight-up fight.
Conor would need to pull out all the stops. Antitank mines, heat-seeking missiles, a few rockets, and a massive antimaterial rifle. Sure, the scales might be depicted as stronger than steel, but they had a fatal flaw. It was the same flaw all creatures did; they were made of material. Why would his massive sniper rifle not work? Conor could not think of any reason why using that weapon would not be a solution to killing such a beast.
Conor doubted Herela had fought the beast toe-to-toe; there was no way that coward would. The noble likely sat hundreds of kilometers away in a plush command chair and slung rail gun rounds at it from orbit.
Either that or his kill was actually the work of dozens, if not hundreds, of soldiers standing before him while he shouted about his greatness from the rear lines.
According to the priestess, who was currently scaring Eivaley and Conor's necks, the acidic substance in the fang was also natural to the creature.
The young couple had been lying on a dais for hours within the largest temple in Livayie. Overhead, the statues of the first empress, the First Champion, and the brood mother watched as the priestesses gave each of them their life coil.
Their stoney visages judged the couple's worth and assured them their will be done. Their will being done applied to both the couple and the priestesses.
The priestesses had bestowed the scared coils hundreds, if not thousands, of times throughout their tenure. However, this particular instance was strange, to say the least.
Unlike the other times they bound a couple, this one was, frankly, disgusting. Why was this Human being allowed to be bonded with the fifth princess? Why did the princess insist on having the human hand imposed on her scales?
It was all just so wrong. Not only was the Human unscaled, but it also bled like a stuck pig with each application of the acid. With each stroke of the fang, Conor's skin would boil as steam wafted away; the smell was horrible, enough so that all the onlookers to the ceremony had departed after only a few minutes.
That was especially odd because many locals would usually attend and pray for the new pair. There was still that amount at the beginning, but only a dedicated few remained once the smell filled the air. They likely supported Eivaley's ascension to empress or believed in the mythical statements surrounding the Human. But the priestess did not know for sure.
Despite the smell and increasing unrelenting pain, the Human did not move. He did occasionally flinch, but that was rare.
Most of the time over the last few hours, all he did was assure the princess it would all be alright, compliment her, and occasionally chuckle when she yelped.
How was this Human so calm? His skin was being melted away; if anything, the princess should be freaking out and worried for his safety. This particular type of acid was not harmful to Kurlatra; all it did was stain their scales.
Sure, you did not want to get it in your eyes, but even that would just need a quick rinse. It was not that powerful for them, but for a Human, it was unknown.
Conor's skin was taking the blacking color it should be, but how it was doing so was all wrong. The Human's coil was a form of scarification. The acid would burn his skin, create heat, and then his nanites would rapidly heal the dermal damage, sealing in the soot.
It was a miracle that this worked at all. Runala, the priestess who was imprinting the princess's tail patterns on his neck, was afraid the main would die because the acid would eat straight through his neck.
Thank the brood mother, it did not—their lives depended on them doing their duty, regardless of their apprehensions and fears.
The grant overseer arrived earlier that morning and explained what would happen today. Their leader even assured the empress that he would have them killed if they did not honor Kurlatra tradition; he emphasized that if it was for some petty reason, such as the Humans race, they would all be killed.
Them for their pettiness, and him for having must have corrupted their teachings.
With no other options, they simply performed as they were expected. They would refill the fangs as normal and apply them to the couples' necks as usual—at least they were almost done.
“It still hurts,” Eivaley groaned.
The priestess rolled her eyes. This should not be that painful. All that the princess should be feeling was the warmth of the empress smiling at her choices—or at least that is the religious explanation. In modern times, the empire was well aware that warmth was caused by chemical reactions.
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“Worry not, princess, it is almost done,” the priestess assured, tracing the last few lines on the royal neck.
“OK,” she squirmed, her tail slapping angrily against the dais.
From that point, the priestesses finished in about half an hour at most, including cleaning up the dais and double-checking their work; neither wanted the couple to do their tour around the city with errors in the life coils.
“Thanks for everything,” the Human said as he activated some kind of flexible black armor from the attachment on his wrist.
It let out a light purplish shimmer as it crawled up his body and encapsulated his chest. The priestess had seen him deactivate that same equipment earlier, but that made its usage no less fascinating.
Compared to the other royals' power armor, the Humans' Nanoflex seemed rather simple. It was not boisterous, nor did it really show off the man's status. Other nobles would wear their armor outside their clothing, wanting the common folk to see their prosperity and power.
Conor, on the other hand, wore his armor as if it meant nothing. He simply tossed on the armor and then his clothes over it, making the thin material look like an undershirt.
Why? He had killed the former God of Close Combat; he was the Lord of War. The man could go around with hundreds of fully armed soldiers anywhere in the empire, and no one would question it. Behaviors and shows of force like that were almost expected of him. Perhaps that reserved attitude was something the princess saw in the man.
Whatever the reason, the man was an enigma. He seemed like a contradiction of existence when compared to the nobles of equal and lesser rank.
The Human's enigmatic nature was emphasized when the man picked up Eivaley and carried her out of the temple. It was not like he supported her; no, he picked her up in both arms, let her wrap her tail around his neck, and smiled before departing.
They barely acknowledged the locals, showering them with praise as they left. They did not ignore them; the locals just had to battle with their pairs, and they stared at one another.
“Hey, look,” the other priestess said, picking up a credit stick left on the table where the now-official Fifth Champion had been lying.
The pair looked at each other for a moment, neither really wanting to interact with the odd man yet again. But since one of them picked it up, the other just kept cleaning and left her sister to deal with it.
The credit stick-wielding priestess sighed and looked at her sister, flabbergasted for a moment. She hissed at her sister, making her disappointment known, but still ran after the pair.
“Fifth Champion, you left this,” the priestess shouted, chasing after them, hoping they had not reached the bottom of the stairs.
—--
“You left this!” Conor heard just as he was about to round the bottom of the stairs.
Looking back and past the rows of swaying trees and following locals, he could see one of the two priestesses gasping for air at the midpoint of the nearly kilometer-long staircase.
She was nearly buckled over, holding herself up against the side of the railing, but in one hand, she held the credit stick he had left for them as a tip.
Conor did understand this was a religious event. He had even recited the prayer to the brood mother for Eivaley's sake, but it was still a tattoo session. It was only right that you gave your tattoo artist a heavy tip.
The only tattoo he had ever gotten was lost long ago. It was a skull motif on his long-since-replaced hand. But even then, he still understood that it was a massive task to give anyone ink.
He considered the one Silvara had given him all those years ago an excellent piece and had given her a gun for the trouble. Urla knew finding good artists in Heavalun was challenging, so she had been given good pay—just like he had tried to with the priestesses.
The priestesses were also great, so they deserved it, especially after the hours they struggled to complete the job. Fuck, Conor doubted there were many artists with as steady a hand and as steadfast a dedication as the two religious women.
They painstakingly recreated Eivaley's scales on his neck and his augmented hand on hers. They had not missed a singular detail in either. Each scratch, ding, dent, and screw on his hand were flawlessly imposed on Eivaley.
As for his own neck, Eivaley had already wrapped her tail around his neck and compared the ink to the real deal. She squealed so loudly that he knew it must have been perfect, even if he would have to wait to see it.
They could have given up because his physiology was so different. But out of their dedication to their craft and the royal family, they persisted and pushed through, giving him a scarification piece.
“I know,” Conor bellowed, “It’s your tip.”
The priestess looked confused between Conor and the credit stick before her brain caught up to the out-of-the-blue comment.
“I can’t take this. It is my duty to give life coils.” She argued, starting down the stairs to give it back.
Conor looked down at Eivaley, who rolled her eyes, having expected this. She had repeatedly warned Conor that the church members were pious and did not accept payment for the services.
“Any idea?” Conor asked.
“Maybe tell her it is a gift?” Eivaley suggested, understanding that the clergy are fully capable of accepting gifts no matter the degree.
Conor nodded and agreed.
“Just keep it. It is a gift,” Conor yelled out.
The Human did not even give the priestess a chance to respond. He simply turned around and rushed off to the palace. Conor did not even wait to see how the priestess reacted to her generous gift.
If he had, Conor would have been treated to the young lady fainting upon seeing the astronomical number of zeros at the end of the credit stick balance.
The young priestess, although having already understood there was a canyon-wide difference between her meager life and those of nobility, had never seen it quantified.
That this strange alien, who had somehow stolen the heart of one of their princesses no more than a year earlier, could flippantly leave enough money to raise a small army behind was a true shock—at least to her.
Conversely, Conor had far more pressing matters than barely a drop in the bucket for his financial pull.
His focus was solely elsewhere. Namely, the beautiful woman cradled in his arms, giggling as he started to jog back to the palace.
Conor disregarded the tour around town that they were supposed to take. In Kurlatra tradition, a newly married couple would typically travel around their home city, showing off their life coils for all to see.
As they did, the locals would bestow small trinkets and teats on the newly made Lady. At the same time, the Champions and non-bonded men would congratulate the newly crafted Champion and give him good wishes for his future journey and any weapon they believed would be of assistance.
The Kurlatra empire could forgive his lack of decorum one more time. They could go on their walk another time. Conor had plans for the day, and their culture would not stop him. Beyond all other things, he wanted to recreate this morning's events.
They had slept for at most four hours. Conor was eager, willing, and beyond, ready to restate his claim on his Eivaley as soon as they had woken up.
She was tired, jelly-legged, and in a delighted mental haze, her brain still struggling to sort out all the pleasures and pains Conor had imposed on her the previous night—she had yet to even restfully.
But all the rest she believed she was entitled to meant nothing. Her man had hoisted her from bed, dragged her to the shower, and positioned her to feed his desire to corrupt her.
Conor slowly tasted upon the succulent sweet weep dribbling off Eivaleys quivering thighs. Her addictive taste filled his mind more than any drug this side of the Milky Way.
Once his addiction was sated, Conor showed her how much more he wanted. Eivaley was slid off his shoulder and allowed to fall into a wet heap at her man's feat.
She looked up and saw his towering figure as he pressed on and traced her lips with the tip of his scalding hot shaft, the salty remnants of his precum teasing her lips.
Conor grabbed her head with both hands and pushed his cocks tip against her lips. He, with unbound lust, demanded with no words the action she needed to take— ‘suck it.’
Conor could remember the sounds of his beloved choking and desperate for breath while his cock stuffed her throat full.
For the Human, those sounds, those feelings, and their hours of aftercare were exactly what he was ready to recreate. All he had to do was get back to the palace.
The only thing that happened that day that was not part of his plan was Burlai reaching out to let him know they needed to talk. But Conor would deal with that later.